The general field of the invention relates to a pair of adjacently located self-cleaning ovens, commonly referred to as a double oven.
There are several reasons why both oven cavities of a double oven should not be self-cleaned simultaneously. First, double ovens are commonly installed one on top of the other in a kitchen wall, such that the upward hot air convection and heat conduction resulting from simultaneous self-cleaning could create an outside wall temperature that might exceed safety standards. Second, the electrical components of a double oven are typically mounted on top and excessive heat may induce component failures. Third, the power requirements to provide simultaneous self-cleaning may exceed typical house wiring limitations.
The prior art approach was to use a controller or control to prevent simultaneous self-cleaning. An oven controller or control totally disabled one oven when the adjacent oven was self-cleaning, thus foregoing the use of either oven for cooking. In a variation of the above approach, a control was used only to disable self-clean mode in one oven when the adjacent oven was self-cleaning. The non-cleaning oven could therefore be used for thermal cooking.
A disadvantage with the prior art approach is that failure modes of a controller or control may result in potentially hazardous simultaneous self-cleaning. Further, devices responsive to controllers may fail resulting in simultaneous self-cleaning.
Controller failure modes may also cause another problem during self-cleaning of an oven cavity having microwave capability. In a common cavity oven it has been conventional for a waveguide to couple the magnetron to the back wall of an oven. It has also been conventional to direct magnetron blower air into the oven cavity, through the waveguide, for forcing air out of the oven cavity while cooking in microwave mode. During self-cleaning, however, rising hot air could enter the waveguide overheating microwave components contained therein. A prior art approach to prevent this problem was for an oven controller or control to activate the blower during self-cleaning to resist hot air from entering the waveguide. Again, controller or control device failure may result in component failures and associated hazards.
As operating modes of modern ovens become more numerous, the possibility of encountering unwanted and hazardous combinations of operating modes increases. Consequently, reliance only on controllers to avoid hazardous operating modes is becoming increasingly risky.